Yvette Kendall - Beyond Invention: Page 3/5﻿

Madam C.J. Walker

WJD: Are you serious? Straight to your face?﻿YK:﻿ Oh yeah, I’m serious! They were like, ‘Who did you do this for? You couldn't do this yourself,’, ‘Who are you presenting this for? You couldn't be the inventor because you’reblack.’ [And I've heard], ‘Not only are you black but you’re from the south side of Chicago and you only have a high school diploma. How did you do this?’ I've talked to Johnson and Johnson and other huge corporations that were like, ‘We've been working in this field for 30 years. We have degrees. We have white lab coats so how did you do this? You’re just a black woman from the south side of Chicago.’ Then I started going to my people. I’m [presenting] my product and I got, ‘Oh, how you do that? You come from where we come from. You ain't supposed to be doing nothing like that!’ ... So, you’re getting it on both ends! WJD: I was just about to say that!﻿YK:﻿ Yeah and the black people didn't believe you. Like, ‘Ain't no way you did anything like that. You went to school with me. Ain't no way you’re coming up with stuff like that! I’m not giving you money so you can get your nails and your hair done,’ this is what they were basically saying. So I had another woman that then went to this friend of hers. She told them, ‘I know this girl. She’s from Chicago, people are writing stories on her left and right,” and this was at a time in Chicago when they were voting on a new governor. This black man was supporting another black man who was running. This woman was like, ‘You’re giving a $150,000 to this man’s campaign, I have this woman that is doing this and that. It would be worth a look.’ He told her, ‘He would rather give $150,000 to a candidate he knew was going to lose, than to give $10 to a black woman with a dream.’ So all these trials and tribulations I [realized] that not only do we have to overcome being black. But we also have to overcome being black and female. And we also have to be accepted as inventors. Not to mention, if you ask a black person or a white person about any black female inventors, who are they going to say? Madam C.J. Walker. I’m glad of what she did, but we've been doing things and making strides that people just will not recognize.

﻿People ask me why did I choose to be an inventor and I tell them, I'm following in my Father's footsteps.﻿

WJD: So if you had to sum up the mission of your organization in three or four words. What would those be?﻿YK:﻿The mission is to enlight, to inspire and empower. WJD: So, the organization itself is a platform for women of color to showcase their ideas and bring them to fruition. What are some of the stumbling blocks you encounter when you deal with aspiring inventors?﻿YK:﻿ That’s a really good and interesting question. I actually had a young lady who chased me on [social media]. She was like, ‘Oh my goodness I heard about you! I’m doing this and I’m doing that ...’ I started to offer her avenues to help her overcome the problems she was having with getting her patent secured – I even offered to write the patent for her. She still needed to [trade] off with some other work because she couldn’t pay for the patent but she basically bombed herself. Every time I said, “I can help you with this.” She was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have a babysitter. Oh, my car broke down... Oh, my house is dirty and I live with a bunch of people.’ I told her we could meet somewhere else, maybe a Starbucks, and she would say something like, ‘I don’t want to meet at Starbucks because I’m allergic to the smell of coffee …’ WJD: (Laughs)

﻿YK:﻿ She became her own worst enemy. I think in her mind, which is one of the reasons I’m doing this, is because [black women] really think they can’t do it. They don’t think they’ll be accepted, they won’t find money and that they’ll never get their product on shelves.

And that’s the biggest thing. Getting [Black Women] to get past themselves.

WJD: Yeah, I find this a lot myself. I speak to black men and black women in particular that have a desire to start their own business and that’s the biggest hurdle I come across. It’s the mentality. Would you say that entrepreneurs just have this mindset where they are not comfortable with “unqualified” authority? You mentioned earlier that you weren’t comfortable working for someone else. Did you use that as a fuel to keep yourself going?

﻿YK:﻿ That was the fossil fuel, really. Because if you’re not going to work for someone else, you have to create work for yourself. You have to create wealth for yourself. Again, it doesn’t always fall in your favor because it’s uncharted territory.

You feel unwittingly that you need the participation of other people. Even if it’s, I need you to be my customer or I need for you to share this information. People still have to willingly participate in your dream, knowingly or unknowingly. That’s the missing piece to being successful and unsuccessful.